Upon successful completion of this course, a student will be able to:

1. Brief law cases in wills and trusts including living wills, living trusts, guardianships and convervatorships.

2. Critically analyze and argue issues of wills, trusts, living trusts, powers of attorney, advance directives, and estate planning devices.

3. Prepare legal documents, forms or papers for a simple and complex will, a trust, living trust, health care and advance directives, along with conservatorships and guardianships, and powers of attorney.

Students will read wills and trust law cases and write a case brief demonstrating their understanding and application of the essential facts and rules of law and legal principles of the case. see case brief rubric at http://missionparalegal.pbworks.com/briefing

Criteria: The “case brief” will achieve an “acceptable” or higher rating, and will be indicative of a paralegal who is competent to work in a law office, state agency or with the courts.

Students will read a court case and write a “case brief” using the FIRACT method of case briefing (“Facts, Issue, Rule, Application and Conclusion”).

The assessment will be evaluated using the following rating scale:

(4) – Superior - comprehensive, very accurate, analytical, sophisticated logic, incisive, persuasive discussion of the facts, issues, rules, rationale, holdings, applications, and conclusions (Facts, Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion, Take Home Mesage - "FIRACT" method)

(3) – Strong - generally convincing, sufficiently analytical and logical, covers well all of the parts of the FIRACT method for a case brief.

(2) – Acceptable – basic understanding, reasonable, unsophisticated but shows comprehension of the case and legal points, lacking mastery but still in control, limited scope, occasionally original, misses parts of the FIRACT method for a case brief.

(1) – Unacceptable - superficial, lacking understanding, non-academic, undigested, unfinished, missing the target, perfunctory, inappropriate to the assignment, poorly developed, does not follow FIRACT method for a case brief.

updated: 3/29/11